CHAPTER X.
Bird-lime—A midnight raid—The massacre at Woodlands—Capture of Molucca pigeons—A pigeon-house—Fritz and I prepare a conjuring trick—Great success of our experiment—Lichen and nutmegs discovered—Jack's adventure—The loom manufactured—Winter stores prepared—The rainy season sets in—Interior of our house arranged—We study languages—The return of spring—A stranded whale—An account of coral—We go to work on the whale's carcase—Remarks on the habits of the whale.
On the following morning we were early astir; and as soon as breakfast was over, we went regularly to work with the bird-lime. The tough, adhesive mixture of caoutchouc, oil and turpentine turned out well.
The boys brought rods, which I smeared over, and made them place among the upper branches, where the fruit was plentiful, and the birds most congregated.
The prodigious number of the pigeons, far beyond those of last year, reminded me that we had not then, as now, witnessed their arrival at their feeding-places, but had seen only the last body of the season, a mere party of stragglers, compared to the masses which now weighed down the branches of all the trees in the neighbourhood.
The sweet acorns of the evergreen oaks were also patronized; large flocks were there congregated; and from the state of the ground under the trees it was evident that at night they roosted on the branches. Seeing this, I determined to make a raid upon them by torchlight, after the manner of the colonists in Virginia.
